


scenes from our mansion, after the war

by jaegermighty



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Iron Man 3, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegermighty/pseuds/jaegermighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Apologies, madam," says JARVIS, "but both you and Mr. Stark made me promise to prevent you from being one of '<i>those couples</i>.'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	scenes from our mansion, after the war

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheeana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/gifts).



When Pepper Potts was sixteen, she took an art class, and for the final they were supposed to cut pictures out of magazines and shellac them to other things in an artistic manner. Pepper didn't think she had much of an artistic manner, but she tried anyway.

_Teen Beat_ magazine had run a profile on Tony Stark that month, dashing young heir/wunderkind as he was, with three whole pages of fuzzy candids and painful-looking school group portraits with the other faces blurred out. Pepper cut out eight different photos of him, artistically, and plastered them to a My Pretty Pony she found in the attic. Her teacher peered at it carefully and gave her a C.

"I'm not really sure what you're going for here," she'd said. "What's your message? What's the direction?"

Pepper, whose name had been Virginia back then, couldn't do anything but shrug. "It's...Pony Stark." She smiled hopefully. "Get it?"

The teacher hadn't laughed. Pepper never took an art class again.

(Tony would've thought it was funny. Pepper knows that for a fact.)

 

 

Pepper spends exactly six days at the New York mansion, resting and relaxing and watching documentaries on Netflix before she throws the remote out the window and attempts escape. She gets pretty far with it, too, dismantles JARVIS' uplink so he can't notify anyone, sneaks past security by going through the basement, makes it as far as the lobby of the mostly-rebuilt SI building in Manhattan before her phone starts ringing and a few stern-looking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pull up in a limo and ask her to come with them please, Ms. Potts, for your own safety.

Pepper doesn't really acknowledge their authority over her or anything, really, at all, but she gets in anyway. Sometimes it's smarter to pick her battles.

Which isn't to say she doesn't at least try. "I just wanted to get some work done!" Pepper pleads, to no avail. "Look, I'm not exploding or anything, I haven't even been able to do the burny firey thing since the oil tanker, okay, the least you could do is let me make some calls - "

"It's a safety precaution, Ms. Potts, for you and everyone else around you," the one female agent says, looking stoic and disapproving. She kind of reminds Pepper of her mother, which only serves to make Pepper resent her even more.

"Tony's serum is working perfectly," Pepper points out. "I haven't so much as run a fever since I took it."

"Director Fury just wants to be sure," the agent says back, and rises her phone up to her face, the conversation apparently finished. Pepper sighs and tries very hard not to sulk.

(It's not that she doesn't _understand_ , honestly she was the first one to sign on when they floated the idea that hey, maybe she should not be around people for a while until they can be sure she's not going to blow them up, it's just - she's so _bored_. Anyone who's ever wished they could quit their job and just watch movies all day has obviously never actually, you know... _done_ that for any extended period of time, because it's kind of the worst thing ever, in Pepper's opinion.)

Tony finally calls after she's dropped back off at the mansion and left again to her own devices (with doubled security and JARVIS' programming now tamper-free) and Pepper decides to answer, if nothing else than to prevent him from hacking into her phone and changing all her ringtones again.

"Mr. Stark," she greets evenly.

"Cool Hand Luke," he responds. "How far'd you make it?"

"The lobby," Pepper says, a little sulkily, collapsing back into her couch groove and frowning at the ceiling. "I hate this. I hate everything about this. I miss my office. Why won't they let me go to my office?"

"I think they're afraid of you," Tony says contemplatively, "of course, they've never seen you try to take a vacation before."

"I'm not very good at it," Pepper admits.

"That you are not, sweetheart. It's one of the many things about you that I find endearing."

"Thanks," Pepper says dryly.

"Now, tell me what you find endearing about me," Tony demands. "Go on, I deserve it, because I got you the best present ever."

"If it's another giant stuffed animal I'm going to burn _this_ mansion down, too," Pepper threatens.

"Go check your laptop," Tony says.

Pepper practically leaps to her feet. "You didn't."

"I so did. I couldn't set up any kind of wireless connection without tipping off the Gestapo, so there's nothing recent, but you've got about a month's worth of paperwork on there for you to roll around in to your bureaucratic heart's content, honey. You're welcome."

Pepper taps through to her hard drive and feels something very similar to the utter exhilaration she'd felt when killing Aldrich Killian, which is something she's fairly sure she should be more concerned about, but whatever. "Oh, Tony," she says, "you really do love me."

"I do," Tony admits, pausing briefly. "Still waiting on the endearments."

What an ass. God, she loves him. "Get your butt to New York and I'll show you some endearment."

"Wish I could." Tony sighs mournfully. "You have no idea how much I wish. I wish more than I've ever wished in my life. And yet."

"They're still not letting you go?" Pepper asks, dismayed. "How much debriefing could you possibly need? I'm the one who did most of the work, anyway."

Tony makes a sort of choking noise, the same one he makes every time she says that. It still hasn't gotten old. "You know, I tried telling Fury that and whataya know, it didn't work. Gender roles, you know, it's ridiculous."

"How much longer?" Pepper asks. "Can you give me a number?"

"A week, maybe," Tony replies, sounding tired. "That's the word on the grey metal underground hallways, anyway."

"You can't make them go any faster?" Pepper asks plaintively. "Like, write them a summary?"

"I'm _trying_ ," Tony says tightly. "I - "

Pepper takes a second just to breathe, let the tension sit for a second before replying. "Tony."

"Sorry," Tony says after a second, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Pepper says mindlessly, "I just miss you."

"I know," Tony says, "I miss you too."

Sometimes, Pepper thinks that the day will come when hearing Tony's voice go low and sweet like that won't make her heart skip in its beat, won't make her stop and wonder at how all that intensity and tenderness could possibly be just for her. Today is not that day. Tomorrow probably won't be it, either.

"Thanks for the paperwork," she says, in lieu of something much more embarrassing.

"You're welcome, you big workaholic freak," he says back, fond enough to let her know that he gets the message anyway.

"Oh, you're one to talk," Pepper retorts.

"Hmm? Didn't catch that. Oh, look at that, it's time for another meeting. What a great way to break up the full day of other meetings. This is marvelous."

"Be good," Pepper tells him, "and call me tonight so you can make sure I'm not exploded, okay?"

"Will do," Tony promises.

 

 

Lying in bed the night after that night, Tony asked Pepper what it felt like, and she didn't have any clue at all what to say.

_Like waking up from a deep sleep, like falling down a deep dark well, like running and never stopping, like the sun, like a star, like the sky, like everything,_ but she couldn't say that. Couldn't think it.

"It's gonna be fine, it's gonna be okay," Tony told her, holding her face in his big hands, looking at her so intently she felt frozen, a pillar of stone. "You will get through this because you are the strongest person I have ever met, and I've met _gods_ , Pepper. Monsters. Hulks. You put them all to shame, honey. I've never met anyone as fierce as you."

"I don't feel strong," Pepper said faintly. "I didn't feel strong when he had me."

"Heroes don't feel strong," Tony replied, "sometimes that's what makes them heroes."

"I'm not a hero," Pepper protested.

"Yes, you fucking _are_ ," Tony said, in the same voice he's used to threaten terrorists, intimidate business opponents, yell at CSPAN reporters at press conferences, "you don't believe me, fine, don't believe me. I'll just keep telling you until you do."

(That, at least, Pepper doesn't doubt.)

 

 

Rhodey comes to visit a couple times when he can take time away from being the President's new favorite person in the universe, which Pepper appreciates, and sometimes Happy will Skype and Pepper will have a very amusing conversation with the top of his forehead. But other than that it's pretty much just her, JARVIS, and the head of her security detail, Agent Sitwell, whose very presence annoys her and makes her miss Phil fiercely, on account of him being such an unpleasant person. (Sitwell, not Phil. Phil was very pleasant.)

"Are you sure you want to do that?" is his favorite expression, often used whenever Pepper does pretty much anything in his eyesight. This, if anything, is as good of a test as she'll get. If the Extremis were really still active, Sitwell would be a pile of ash on the ground by now, she thinks.

"Why do you think his face always looks like that?" Pepper asks one morning, doing her best impression of Sitwell's scrunchy _you're doing something wrong_ face.

"Unfortunately, it seems to simply be his personality, madam," JARVIS answers. Pepper always feels a little better after exchanges like this.

Tony's week turns into two, turns into three, and his phone calls get longer and longer as he winds up tighter and tighter with each passing day. Pepper can practically feel the frustration and restlessness seeping through the phone line during their calls, always hangs up afterward with the jitters and an incessant urge to go run around the block or hunt down a terrorist, or something. Debriefings are the worst.

"I think it's a made-up word," Tony tells her, "I really do. It sounds like something they stole from _Alias_ and then pull out of their ass whenever they want to make me sit in the corner for three weeks doing nothing."

"I thought you were explaining things," Pepper replies, "you told me you were doing a lot of that."

"Explaining, sitting, hacking Hill's Facebook. It's all relative."

"Maria has a Facebook?"

"Don't call her that. Don't call spies by their names, Pepper."

"What exactly," Pepper replies, "am I supposed to call them?"

" _Spies,_ " Tony replies, sounding like he'd rather have said something ruder.

"Seems confusing," Pepper comments.

Tony huffs, a brief puff of static over the connection. "Just, thank God for Banner," he says, "he's like therapy, only so much better, because he just naps and doesn't say anything."

"I hope you're not thinking about leaving me for him," Pepper replies, "because I think it'd be really embarrassing for the Avengers to have the Hulk get exploded by someone as delicate as me."

Tony does that little chuckle he makes whenever he thinks Pepper is being especially cute, which were they talking in person would usually be followed up by some kind of nose or forehead kiss. Pepper really misses the nose and forehead kisses. "Your delicate explodey powers are definitely the thing I miss most about you."

"Really, because the thing I miss most about you is your tacky 90s facial hair," Pepper says.

"My facial hair makes me look like Evil Spock, and that is amazing," Tony says indignantly. "Besides, your stupid Pippi Longstocking freckles are way more missable."

"Eh, not as much as that annoying clicking noise you make when you chew."

"Fair, yes, good thing to miss, but I think my top one is - " Tony says, and the call drops.

Pepper blinks. "What - JARVIS!"

"Apologies, madam," says JARVIS, "but both you and Mr. Stark made me promise to prevent you from being one of ' _those couples_.'"

"Yeah, but we didn't _mean_ it," she replies, rolling her eyes, and stalks off to the living room to call him back.

 

 

Sometimes, Tony calls at night. He doesn't say anything, but Pepper can hear him breathing, and feel her own start to speed up in response. So she sits up in bed and starts humming the greatest hits of the late 80s until she hears him stop hyperventilating, and they can talk normally again.

Other times, Pepper's the one who wakes up from a dead sleep feeling like something is choking her. She'll find tears she doesn't remember shedding on her cheeks, feel a fever that doesn't exist burning through her skin. She lies awake sometimes and thinks about Orca, Killian's dog. She was a pitbull that he'd rescued from a kill shelter. He'd brought her everywhere that he possibly could get away with - conferences, parties - the office, certainly. Pepper doesn't know what happened to her.

(Pepper doesn't know what happened, period.)

 

 

After the third time that JARVIS and Pepper _accidentally_ lock Sitwell in the upstairs bathroom, they send over a different agent to the mansion, a gesture of - sensitivity? practicality? who cares - by the name of Victoria, a young, foul-mouthed woman with purple streaks in her hair who seems to think the best way to relate to Pepper is by teasing her constantly and eating everything in the kitchen.

"So Tony Stark is like, awful in bed, right," Victoria says one day, through a mouthful of Caesar salad. Pepper chokes slightly on her Vitamin Water. "He is, isn't he. You can tell me, I can keep a secret."

"That's really none of your business," Pepper says, as gently as possible.

"I knew it," Victoria says triumphantly. "Guys like that are always overcompensating for something."

Pepper covers her mouth with one hand, torn between laughing and wincing, not really sure which one she wants to go with. At her right arm, her phone buzzes with a text from the guy in question - probably somehow sensing his manhood being besmirched from an entire continent away.

"He's probably a good guy, though," Victoria says thoughtfully. "Iron Man's pretty cool. And he caught those A.I.M. dudes who wanted to take over the country or whatever."

"Yes, he is," Pepper says primly, "I'm glad I have your approval."

"Coulson liked him," Victoria continues thoughtfully. She says 'Coulson' in the same tone that Tony usually says 'computational fluid dynamics.'

"I didn't know that," Pepper says, surprised.

"Oh yeah. Coulson always liked the assholes the best." Victoria pauses to pop a crouton into her mouth, crunching definitively. "Kinda like you, huh?"

Pepper clears her throat pointedly.

Victoria grins. "I wouldn't try so hard to make you uncomfortable if it weren't so easy, you know."

"What?" Pepper exclaims, "that's ridiculous, I'm not uncomfortable."

"I dunno, you look pretty uncomfortable," Victoria says, raising her eyebrow at Pepper's hands, folding and refolding a paper napkin. Pepper drops it like it's on fire.

"Don't you have work to do?" she asks.

"Not really," Victoria says, "didn't you hear? Aliens invaded. We've got the year off." Then she gives a thumbs up and steals the last bread stick.

Pepper starts to consider that she might possibly have a type.

 

 

"Do you feel like a hero?" Pepper had asked.

Tony was quiet for a very long time before he answered. "Some days, yeah."

"But not most days."

"Most days." Tony shook his head. "I dunno, Pep. What do you think?"

Pepper took his hand and kissed the knuckles. "You're my hero. And that - matters. So yes, I think you are."

"Well, you're _my_ hero," Tony said back, curling in around her body, bumping their noses together on the pillow. "So, you know. There you go."

 

 

There's some kind of incident in Beirut that requires Iron Man's attention. This isn't unusual, but it's stressing Pepper out that she doesn't get the chance to yell at Tony as he gets ready to leave.

Maybe it'd be better if she didn't know. So many times she's wished she didn't while simultaneously being grateful that she did, because at least if something happened she'd know why and how. That was the worst part, about Afghanistan - the not knowing.

Now, though, she sits in her bedroom and listens to JARVIS' feed of classified radio intercepts and watches her own hands, waiting to feel that burn, the surge of power she doesn't recognize. It never comes, but she still watches.

When Tony lands (crashes) back on American soil, Victoria uses her password to get Pepper into the security video feeds at the hospital in Virginia where he's being treated. Pepper watches him sleep and thinks about sitting on a private plane while New York City imploded, while Tony flew into a hole in the sky and almost disappeared forever.

Pepper is forty years old, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, occasionally breathes fire, and has been sitting in this mansion for seven weeks, four days and six and a half hours.

Enough.

 

 

"Ow," Tony says.

"Morning," Pepper says. Tony squints one eye opens, then groans and closes it again. "Nice to see you too."

"I had plans," Tony accuses. "Romantic reunion plans. With like, flowers and stuff."

"I know," Pepper says consolingly. "I saw it on your credit card bill."

Tony groans again.

"I'm sure I would've loved it."

"C'mere," Tony says, reaching out a hand. Pepper scoots forward in her chair to take it, smoothing his hair down with her other. "You get a day pass?"

"More than just a day," Pepper says. "You're looking at a free woman."

"What? Really?"

"Yes." Pepper smiles proudly. "JARVIS and I hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D. and blackmailed Fury. It was kind of fun."

Tony grins widely. "I'm loving this new side of you, honey, really, I am."

Pepper shrugs. "It was getting ridiculous. I know I was a fan in the beginning, but I'm starting to think that S.H.I.E.L.D. might not have our best interests at heart, Tony."

"Oh, really?" Tony grimaces. "Never would've thought."

Pepper smiles tenderly. "Are you in much pain?"

"Nope, you?"

"Nope." Pepper distracts herself by fussing with his blankets, rearranging his IV. "I assume you're done debriefing?"

"Why, you got a better offer for me?"

"I was thinking we could take a vacation." Pepper pauses. "A real one."

Tony blinks. "Is that code for something? Are we being surveilled?"

Pepper takes a deep breath and deliberately catches his eye, watching his expression settle into sincerity. "We haven't had time to breathe since everything happened. And that's not a good thing. I feel - I'm not sure how I feel, but everything's different and I just - " she takes another deep breath. "You're what I'm sure of. I'm sure of us. Everything else - who knows."

Pepper can visibly see Tony swallow, feel the slight tremor in his hands, held tightly in hers. "Pep."

"I don't know where to go from here, but - I know we can figure it out together, if we give ourselves time to." Pepper smiles tremulously. "You know?"

"Yeah, I know." Tony reaches up to touch her face, his callouses rough against her skin. It's a familiar sensation. "I know."

Pepper sighs, leaning down to rest her forehead against his shoulder. His hand moves from her neck to her hair, gentle as anything. "Okay."

"Okay." Tony chuckles softly, chest vibrating against her cheek. "Bermuda? I'll buy you a bikini."

"I don't need a new bikini. I don't even wear bikinis."

"It'll be a really nice, expensive bikini, though. I'll get you a new pair of shoes to go with it."

"Why would I wear high heels on a beach? That's really impractical."

"See, why would you assume they're high heels? Maybe I was thinking about sandals."

Pepper snorts. "Just a hunch."

"They make designer flip flops, you know," Tony says.

"Do _not_ buy me flip flops," Pepper says.

 

 

When Pepper was thirty years old, she interviewed for a job in Stark Industries' PR department, and accidentally corrected Tony Stark's math while chatting with Obadiah Stane's secretary in the conference room. Three hours later she got a call telling her she'd been hired for a position she did not apply for and did not even know existed, and became a person she did not know she'd always been meant to be.

"Pepper - _Pepper_ ," Tony had said, repeating it twice with his eyebrows raised, "really? _That's_ your nickname? Can I call you something else?"

"Certainly, Mr. Stark," said Pepper, with calm assurance, "you may call me Ms. Potts."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed, Sheeana! This turned out completely different than what I'd been originally trying to do, but I hope you like it anyway. :)


End file.
